The Rusty Duck was a Ford Tri-Motor plane owned by Ashton Byrne, a down-on-his-luck Canadian pilot and veteran of World War I. Bryne flew in and around Asia Minor, often using Istanbul, Turkey as a base of operations.

The cargo plane met its end after Bryne was paid $10,000 by the Wardens to fly them to the environs of Snake Castle in southeastern Turkey. As The Rusty Duck appeared over the castle, a flight of demons attacked it, smashing the cockpit and wrecking its controls. Bryne and the Wardens escaped via parachutes, leaving the Duck to crash into the Turkish countryside.

After an eventful journey aboard the Orient Express, the Wardens arrive in Istanbul on March 1, 1937. They met with their local contact, Mert Kahraman, Turkish liaison to the British consulate in Istanbul at the Pera Palace Hotel.

After much testing, Pinnacle announced in May 2015 that they were changing the way “Shaken” works. In the original Savage Worlds Deluxe rules (as well as earlier editions of the game), a Shaken character who made a successful recovery roll could only act on her turn if she’d gotten a raise on the roll.

The seaplane Lady Luck is a mercenary airplane occasionally used by the Wardens. Based in New York Harbor, the Lady Luck is a Sikorsky S-42 Clipper seaplane. It’s piloted by Jason Baxtor, an occasionally down-on-his-luck pilot who’s always one job away bankruptcy. He won the plan during an unlikely (and unrepeatable) winning streak.

Converted for cargo hauling, plane has port and starboard mounted machine guns that fire from sliding doors that open in the sides of the plane (though the port-side gun frequently jams and Baxtor freely admits its more or less useless).

Despite her name, the Lady Luck doesn’t have the greatest maintenance and flight record. The ship shows a lot of wear, and every four hours of flight requires a successful Repair check or something bad happens (engine fails, flap sticks, etc.). Continue reading The Lady Luck→

This mariner’s astrolabe was once used by Portuguese explore Ferdinand Magellan during his ship Trinidad’s circumnavigation of the world in 1522. The astrolabe is a small brass device historically used to “determine the latitude of a ship at sea by measuring the sun’s noon altitude (declination) or the meridian altitude of a star of known declination” (Wikipedia).

The relic is imbued with a sliver of Magellan’s will, granting a +2 bonus to any navigation related check.

Magellan used it until he died during Battle of Mactan in the Philippines in 1521. Since then it has had numerous masters, each of whom died violently just before or after achieving some notable milestone of exploration or navigation.

In the aftermath of the battle on the Unsichtbare Hand (“Unseen Hand”) our heroes have seized control of a German zeppelin after killing or incapacitating much of its crew. At the same time, their original transport – a Pan Am clipper-style seaplane called The Lady Luck — had gone missing when a prisoner the Wardens had taken escaped his bonds and attacked the pilot, Jason Baxter.

The Enlightenment is a secret society dedicated to uncovering the forgotten history of the Lost Continent of Mu. The continent sunk beneath the waves of the Pacific during humanity’s prehistory; stories of Atlantis or Shangri-la are but echoes of its ancient glory. It is rumored that the leaders of the lost continent were great and powerful sorcerers who had master all the great mysteries.

Hong Shou, is a predominantly Chinese street gang in New York City with ties to the Enlightenment. They are known to the English-speaking residents of NYC as the Red Hand Triad.

Although originally a Chinese gang, the Red Hand Triad is remarkable for its diversification. It has sought to make connections with all of the outcasts in society, particularly among immigrant groups. As a result, a full 30 percent of its members are non-Chinese — it is not uncommon for triad groups to include a mix of Irish, Italian, and other ethnicities.

Honqi Pang is the leader of the Hong Shou, a predominantly Chinese street gang in New York City with ties to the Enlightenment. They are known to the English-speaking residents of NYC as the Red Hand Triad.

Honqi is known for his astute tactical and strategic sense; his criminal empire is built on diversification of both people and activities. Nearly a third of the members of his gang are non-Chinese, and he actively recruits the best of other outcast societies in New York City. This provides him with valuable inroads into other areas of the city that would typically be denied to him, and keeps the NYPD guessing as to his next move. Continue reading Honqi Pang→

Excerpt from the debriefing of Rikard Greystone, Warden of New York City, United States of America. Filed via telegram from Paris, France on February 26, 1937.

“Well, we started to interrogate two of our prisoners from the previous fight. And then some creepy demon-thing showed up sucked the soul out of one of them.”

“Then we found a seaplane so we could chase after the escaping Zeppelin. And so, dragging along our remaining prisoner in chains, we set out on a transatlantic chase aboard the Pan Am clipper-style seaplane called the Lady Luck.”Continue reading Episode 14: The Unseen Hand→